Ahoy, mateys!

For years, my parents have planned to celebrate their fiftieth anniversary by taking the entire family, however many there were of us by then, on an Alaska cruise. That particular anniversary has not yet arrived, but all thirteen of us plus one will be leaving next Sunday. My parents were worried that disaster might strike before the actual fiftieth, so we're seizing the day and striking while the iron is hot.

(Family inventory: older adults (parents); self, adult siblings, and spouses for each (total: 6); girls aged 10, 5, and 1; boys ages 9 and 7; and young German woman, former au pair now part of family.)

Coincidentally, Vicki over at I Love Orange and her entire extended family have just gone on nearly the same cruise, on the occasion of her mother's 80th birthday. She's doing a very wonderful job of documenting the whole trip right now. It's been helpful for me, because I can show Joe a little of what to expect. This is good because we discovered some time ago that the boys were very concerned about the safety of the cruise. A little library research proved that nearly all media—books, films, video games—with any kind of nautical theme (all of which seem aimed at boys) are all about disaster: pirates, terrorists, shipwreck. Yikes! No wonder they were worried. We tried to reassure them that the ship was very large and not likely to sink. "The Titanic was a big ship," they said, stony-faced. I think they still don't quite believe our claims that the trip will be more about buffets and shuffleboard than cutlasses, pieces of eight, and being stranded on a desert island.

Speaking of the Titanic, there will be two formal nights that we will be required to dress for. This is not really a problem for Henry and me, since we do go to the opera regularly and  we have decent-looking sparkly clothes. (I did consider seeing if I could find matching powder blue outfits; a tuxedo with a ruffly shirt and patent leather shoes for him, a bride's maid nightmare for me.... but this seemed not sufficiently appreciative or respectful to the givers of the gift of the trip.) My sister, however, was anxious, so yesterday some of us did some Rodeo-Drive-style boutique shopping at Value World (formerly Value Village, but they expanded. Why think small? Think Napoleonic!) I went into thrift-shop mode, scanning each rack quickly for high-end fabrics  and cuts and pulling out everything that might be worth a second look. Emma, who's 10, greeted everything with, "That's sooo cute! I love it! Can I get it?" Nadin, who's six feet tall and slim, and would look fabulous in just about anything but would rather wear jeans and a t-shirt, looked through a few racks in a desultory way and rejected everything I suggested (including, sadly, a deep purple silk shirt with pin tucks and flowing sleeves). Karen found a velvet shirt and some embroidered silk pants almost immediately, and spent the rest of the time we were there saying "I'm done shopping! Let's go now!"

I left Value World empty-handed, but that's okay. I've already got my tiara all packed.